HTML Entities: What They Are and How to Use Them

HTML entities are special codes used to represent characters that have reserved meanings in HTML or characters that cannot be typed on a standard keyboard.

What Are HTML Entities?

HTML entities start with an ampersand (&) and end with a semicolon (;). They represent characters that would otherwise be interpreted as HTML markup:

When to Use HTML Entities

1. Reserved Characters

<!-- Wrong -->

<!-- Right --> <p>5 &lt; 10 and 10 &gt; 5</p> `

2. Special Symbols

<p>Price: &euro;50 or &pound;40</p>
<p>Copyright &copy; 2025</p>

3. Invisible Characters

<p>100&nbsp;km/h</p>

Numeric Entities

You can also use numeric codes:

Common Mistakes

1. Forgetting the semicolon — &lt instead of <
2. Double encoding — < instead of <
3. Encoding in attributes — title="5 < 10" is correct
4. Not encoding in code blocks — Inside <pre> and <code>, entities are still interpreted

Try It Online

## Common HTML Entities

• & → & (ampersand — must be encoded in attributes and text)
• < → < (less than — must be encoded to avoid being parsed as a tag)
• > → > (greater than — technically optional but recommended)
• " → " (double quote — must be encoded in attribute values delimited by double quotes)
• ' or ' → ' (single quote — must be encoded in single-quoted attributes)
•   → non-breaking space (prevents line breaks at this point)
• © → © (copyright symbol)
• ® → ® (registered trademark)
• ™ → ™ (trademark)
• — → — (em dash)
• – → – (en dash)
• … → … (ellipsis)

Numeric vs Named Entities

HTML entities come in two forms:

• Named entities: &, ©,  . Easy to read and remember, but only a limited set is defined.
• Numeric entities: & (decimal) or & (hexadecimal) for &. Can represent any Unicode character.

For characters without named entities (like emojis or rare Unicode symbols), use numeric entities. For example, the copyright symbol can be written as ©, ©, or © — all three are equivalent.

When to Use HTML Entities

1. In HTML text content: Encode &, <, and > to avoid parsing issues.
2. In attribute values: Encode &, <, >, and the matching quote character.
3. In JavaScript strings: Use \u escapes or direct UTF-8 characters instead of HTML entities.
4. In URLs: Use percent encoding (%20 for space), not HTML entities.
5. In CSS: Use CSS escape sequences (\\ for backslash) or direct UTF-8 characters.

Modern HTML5 with UTF-8 encoding rarely needs entities for special characters — you can type © directly. But &, <, and > must always be encoded in HTML. Use our free HTML entities encoder/decoder to encode or decode HTML entities instantly — no installation needed.